•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Once they’ve made it to the top, few people return to their roots to pay homage. Businesswoman and broadcaster Irma Hutabarat is an exception.

A long-time political activist, Irma has established the Miyara Sumatera Foundation in honor of her family’s heritage. In Sanskrit, “Miyara Sumatera” means “Taking Care of Sumatra,” and the foundation is aimed at preserving and revitalizing the natural and cultural resources of Sumatra and improving the welfare of its people.

“Taking care of Sumatra is like taking care of my own hometown. My father had always wanted me to do something for the island,” said Irma, whose father passed away in 2010. “In the old days, Sumatra was famous as Swarnadwipa [the Island of Gold] and was one of the largest producers and exporters of precious natural resources, such as gold, camphor and coffee, in the world. Yet today its important role has diminished.”

Irma was born in Jakarta, but both of her parents brought their Batak culture from North Sumatra to the capital. It was her parents who first introduced her to the unique culture of Sumatra.

“My father loved to play traditional Batak songs at home,” she said. “My mother’s an avid collector of ulos [a traditional textile from North Sumatra] and songket [from South Sumatra].”

Irma moved to Sumatra in 1967, when her father was assigned to establish the first crumb rubber factory in Gandus, just upstream of Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra.

“On weekends, my father took me to the factory with him,” she said. “We would take a speedboat from Palembang to Gandus and pass through dense jungle, and along the way we encountered wild animals such as river snakes and crocodiles.”

Irma’s journeys into the heart of the jungle as a young women instilled in her a strong love for the Island of Gold. “I saw that Sumatra was very beautiful,” she said, realizing even at a young age how rich the island was in natural resources. “My father and I went to a coffee warehouse in Palembang one day where we saw thousands of sacks of fresh coffee beans stacked. The strong and delicious aroma of coffee wafted in the air.”

The family returned to Jakarta in 1980, and Irma went to study Russian literature at the University of Indonesia.

“Russia has terrific masters of literature, such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky,” she said. “I read their works in Indonesian and English and fell in love with them. But it turned out that it’s even more enjoyable to read their works in the original language. In Russian, their sentences rhyme beautifully.”

While she was at UI, Irma joined the student council, where she engaged in political issues. “I thought that campus politics represented our national politics at that time,” she said. “It was repressive and thwarted young people from learning more and speaking up for themselves.”

Irma and other student council members joined several public demonstrations in Jakarta to protest repressive government policies.

“Through the student council, I learned to care about and empathize with other people,” she said. Irma established the Indonesian Students Association for International Studies in 1984, which still represents Indonesian students at various youth forums and conferences.

Through Isafis, Irma landed her first broadcasting job at Elshinta Radio in 1984. Her duties included interviewing representatives of cultural attaches in Jakarta about foreign universities, including details on enrolling, the cost of living abroad and how Indonesian students could earn scholarships.

“My first paycheck was Rp 50,000 [$5.60],” she laughed. “But I truly enjoyed my job. I loved meeting and talking to people.”

After graduating in 1984, Irma worked for advertising, banking and securities companies in Jakarta, while still maintaining her interests in social and political issues. She also participated in several alumni associations, the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce (Kadin) and Indonesian Corruption Watch.

Irma was hired at Metro TV in 2000. With her wide array of knowledge and experience, Irma was given her own talk show, “Today’s Dialogue.” During her four years on the show, she interviewed several important public figures, including former Vice President Jusuf Kalla and Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) chairman Prabowo Subianto.

But today, Irma focuses all her attention and energy on the Miyara Sumatera Foundation. “It’s more fun to work on natural and cultural heritage than politics,” she said.

The foundation works in conjunction with local communities, universities and government offices to propagate its programs. “Our vision is to establish an ecologically sustainable and economically independent Sumatra by developing its natural and cultural wealth,” she said.

Miyara Sumatera was founded last year and began a study and research program on mangrove forests in the southern region of Lampung.

But a recent study, conducted by the organization in conjunction with the University of Lampung (Unila), revealed that the province had lost more than 90 percent of its original mangrove forest because of illegal logging.

“We’re planning to plant new mangrove trees in the coastal areas between Bakauheni and Kalianda [south of Lampung] this year,” she said. The foundation’s goal for 2012 is to plant approximately 10,000 mangrove trees on 30 hectares of coastal land. Irma believes that natural conservation will also help revive the tourism industry in Lampung.

“Lampung is only two hours away by ferry from Merak Port [in Banten],” she said. “So when its natural surroundings are preserved, Jakartans will no longer need to drive to Bandung and endure hours of traffic jams just to go shopping. Instead, they can go to Lampung and enjoy its beautiful panoramas.”

The foundation is also working on a program to record and catalog Lampung’s traditional textiles and mobile weaver groups to preserve the production process. The program has even helped revive kain tapis, a style of hand-woven textile from Lampung thought to have died out after a volcano eruption in 1883. Irma discovered a rare example of the textile among her mother’s collection and showed the pattern to local weavers in Kalianda.

“It was so sad,” she said. “None of them had seen it before. But we managed to locate an old weaver, Ibu Yuhana, who said that she could reproduce the motif in her workshop. We plan to collaborate with her to reproduce the old textile.”

The foundation is also planning to make a documentary film on ulo, a traditional Batak textile from North Sumatra. It is Irma’s profound hope that her four children will learn more about their heritage through her work at the foundation.

“It’s a legacy that I’d like to bequeath to my children,” she said. “I want them to be proud and happy to be born as Indonesians. Our country is blessed with lots of cultural riches. We shouldn’t just take them for granted. We should really appreciate and perpetuate the traditions.”